Coming back to: A newcomer's list of things that confused me, and the fixes

Posting this under the heading it deserves: A newcomer's list of things that confused me, and the fixes Everything below is what sits behind that.

Question in the title. Context below, and I have tried to include the things people here always have to ask for.

What I have already read: the relevant maintained document, the two topics it links to, and the tag page. What I could not find is the specific case I am in, which may simply mean it is uncommon.

I am happy to be told this is answered elsewhere if someone can point at where.

The Lounge is a real category rather than a dumping ground. The sourcing rule still applies there, which surprises people, but the register is looser and nobody minds a digression.

Small point, but it is the one that usually catches people.

One thing that took me a while to notice: the search box indexes maintained documents as well as topics, and documents carry a review date. If a document and a five-year-old topic disagree, the document is the one somebody has looked at recently.

The Lounge is a real category rather than a dumping ground. The sourcing rule still applies there, which surprises people, but the register is looser and nobody minds a digression.

Reading counts toward trust level, so lurking is not wasted. That is unusual and it is the reason the levels here track familiarity rather than volume.

Adding a source would improve this post and I do not have one to hand.

That reframing is the whole thing. The facts I already had.

The category structure looks heavier than it is. There are twenty top-level categories and you will use three of them. Find those three, mute the rest for a month, and come back to the others when a question sends you there.

It is worth stating the boring hypothesis before the interesting one.

The Lounge is a real category rather than a dumping ground. The sourcing rule still applies there, which surprises people, but the register is looser and nobody minds a digression.

Reading the guidelines before you post is genuinely worth the twenty minutes. Not because you will break one, but because the rules explain why the place reads the way it does.